We Were Young
by SerenityGirl1701
Summary: A group of friends in a high school has to fight against the people who have taken over the national government and drugged the country's youth using the weapons from TF2. NOT WRITTEN BY ME, I'M POSTING FOR A FRIEND!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter I

It began a day like any other. Alarm goes off at 6:30, roll out of bed at 6:50, get dressed around 6:55, eat a rushed breakfast around 7:00, and get in the carpool at 7:05. We roll up at school around 7:35, and I get dropped off at the Administration Building while the rest of my carpool rides to the Middle School. I walk past the Admin Building and I enter the Upper School. I join my fellow freshmen in the hallway, waiting for classrooms to open and classes to start. I hang out with my group of around 10 friends. Myself, Katie, Stuart, Jessica, Alex, Rachel, Lincoln, Bharat, Kate, Maneesha, and Ian. As the time becomes 7:58, I tell everybody good-bye, hug Katie, and head off to my first class with Jessica and Maneesha. I arrived in the classroom and sat next to Aron and Izhan. World Literature is not normally an exciting topic (at least to me), but today was more interesting. It started off with Ms. Eason (our teacher) splitting us into two groups and explaining to us that we were going to do a debate on whether the main character in the _Odyssey_ (Odysseus), was morally justified in his actions against the suitors that were invading his house. My group had to argue that Odysseus was not morally justified, which was contradictory to what we had been learning in the class as a whole. To further stack the odds against us, most of the kids who were in Debate were in the other group. We were given the rest of the class to prepare for the debate, which was to take place the following day. At the end of class, we felt that we had accomplished almost nothing, and were dreading the debate. As we were packing up our bags to leave, Ms. Eason called out to the class "I need to see Jack, Jessica, and Maneesha". Everyone turned and looked at us three. I muttered to Aron "what did I do this time?" He just shook his head and laughed. As the rest of the class filed out, the three of us went over to her desk and waited. After what seemed like an eternity, she looked up at us. Her face was not full of anger or disappointment, but rather sorrow and regret, as if she was about to drop some really bad news on us. I held my breath, waiting for the coming words.

"You all know about the underground war, right?" she asked.

We all shook our heads with confused looks on our faces.

"Well," she continued, "long story short, a group called 'THEM' rose up and used force to condemn the Obama administration and his presidency. As a small group, it would have been nothing. It _should _have been nothing. Only, it wasn't. Many people from all around the nation joined THEM. Soon, the feds had trouble suppressing the revolution. After a long, hard battle, they caved in and THEM won. As of 1:00 today, the feds surrender and hand over control to THEM."

All three of us stand there in shock. I finally get my mouth open to ask "Get ready for the understatement of the century. That sucks."

Maneesha jumps in with "Wait…so what does that have to do with us?"

"Well, it isn't really just you three that this has to do with," she told us, "but rather your whole group of friends…and a few others."

"Which others?" Maneesha asks.

"Sindhoor, Meg, Pauline, and Gretchen" came her reply. "As you know, Gretchen lives in New Jersey but is home for the week. Meg and Pauline we have already moved to the safe zone. The rest of you will have to fight your way out, however. At precisely 1:00, when the surrender is signed, everybody excluding your 'group', as you like to call it, will suffer from a drug, NaTIVe-886, that the government administered shortly before the war started. It was put into routine checkups as a vaccine, but its true nature is that of a disease. The only people that are not affected are the rebels and you all. That is why we refer to the immunes as 'revolutionaries', or 'revs', for short."

Jessica then pipes up, "Does the rest of the group know about this?"

Ms. Eason answered "Yes, the other teachers are informing them now. You will all be at your lunch spot in the corner between the FC (Fitness Center) and the cafeteria, right?"

"Yes" came our unanimous reply.

"Good." she said. "As I said before, you will need to fight your way out. There are several PDW's in the FC. To be precise, they are located in the Athletic Director's office. Just ask him where the softball equipment is, and he'll show you. Now go, quickly, before the kids in your next classes get suspicious!"

At that, we hurried from the classroom. I sprinted from the classroom out the door, through the stairwell, outside, and burst into the SEA (Student Education Annex) lobby to a crowd of juniors during one of their free periods. I walked quickly past them and down the long hallway to my Chinese class. Thankfully, Aron had already explained that I had gotten out of class late to the teacher (Ms. Li), and I was able to join the class without too much deviation. Since it was a Monday, we didn't really do much except for review vocabulary and characters for the quiz that was scheduled for Tuesday. Then, at 9:40, we were released for our 15-minute break between B and C block. I made my way back to the Upper School and went to the group's usual meeting spot in the corner between some lockers. Once we had all gotten there, Stuart told us that we all needed to go to Mr. Noland's room, which happened to be my next class anyways. We walked as a group up the stairs and into the senior hall. We entered his room and he immediately rose to greet us. Before he managed to say anything, however, Bharat launched the question of "Where and what exactly is the 'safe zone'?"

"You will figure that out soon enough," was Mr. Noland's reply. "Have any of you heard the term 'Panchaea' before?"

Only Bharat and I nodded. Everyone else shook their heads.

"Basically, it's a self-sustaining arctic base that we've been working on for the past 14 years. It is the safest place that we could think of for the revs. In other words, it's the safe zone for you all. The only issue is getting to it."

Right then, Ian interjected with "Wait, so how are we supposed to get out of _here_, let alone get to this 'Panchaea'?"

Mr. Noland replied with "The weapons that you will need you should have been informed of already. You can stage your resistance from your corner. As to how to escape the premises, there is a car that you can take. Jack, Katie, I take it you remember Coach Cherre's joke about you two wanting her car keys?"

Our faces turned slightly pink as we answered "Yeah."

"Well," Mr. Noland continued, "you should have taken them. That's the car you will need to escape. When lunch starts, one of you needs to go to her office in the SEA and get her keys. The rest of you need to get the PDW's from the FC. You will have exactly half an hour to do all this."

"I hardly think that we'll be able to simply_ drive _away from all this," Ian pointed out, "Especially in a 5-seater car like the Aztek. Hell, forget driving, how are we gonna _fit_ in it?"

"You'll see." Mr. Noland replied with a grin. "Oh, and I take it that you all figured out by now that since Sindhoor is with you guys and Meg and Pauline are in the safe zone, you still need to rescue Gretchen. I'll leave that up to you all to figure out. Here's a hint; don't use the front door."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

Nervous and excited, Stuart and I stayed in the room while the rest of the group dispersed to their C block classes. We both took our usual seats, and before long, the rest of the class came in. Our C# class went smoothly, with most of us working on our graphics program. The challenge in the graphics program was to be able to alternate between drawing rectangles and ellipses, as well as filling them in with their color. You were also supposed to be able to change the color of the shapes and erase them. Harder than it sounds, I was nonetheless the first out of the people around me to finish. Not counting Stuart. The guy is a wizard with computers, even more so than me. He is already working at the senior level of programming, and is only in this class to be around his friends and not a ton of people he doesn't know.

I was showing Mr. Noland my program when I hear Jonny off to the side saying "Stuart, what is that?"

Stuart replied "It's a program that simulates evolution using numbers. It's sort of like a 'survival of the fittest', except with numbers instead of cells or animals."

I leaned over, curious. It looked like this:

At first, it just looked like a lot of random numbers. Then, as I looked closer, I started to make sense of it. 'The Fittest' box determines what number is most likely to survive, 'Clicks Left' box determines how many clicks you can perform in this particular simulation, 'Average Population' is around how many numbers should be on the screen once you have played with it for a while, and 'Starting Numbers' is how many numbers that it should have after the first click. The numbers inside the large textbox are the result of all of these variables. When I looked closer, I saw that there were generally more 5's than any other single number (lots of 6's grouped together as well, he knew about that bug but didn't have time to fix it).

"Interesting," Mr. Noland mused, "What if you changed it so that two different numbers could both be dominant?"

"It wouldn't work as well," Stuart responded, "The two numbers would essentially battle it out until there weren't many left of either, and then they'd probably just sort of die."

I had to suppress a laugh. The way that he described it seemed like the numbers were in an everlasting war of attrition. Apparently, I was not the only one that thought this, as our classmates around us let loose a few laughs, and even Mr. Noland smiled. The rest of class, sadly, wasn't as eventful or funny. I showed Mr. Noland the rest of my graphics program and listened to music while watching Stuart come up with more awesome ideas and make them reality (at least on the computer). I suppose it's his way of dealing with stress. By the end of the block, he had come up both with a basic 'tag' game with friction and gravity and an advanced version of the evolution program with graphics and a more sophisticated evolution factor. What took him 35 minutes to do would take me hours on end, and it probably wouldn't look nearly as good.

D block. Ancient World History. Not an entirely relevant class, but a good class nonetheless. To my right was Lincoln, and to my left was Alex. At least we could put aside our differences if it meant life or death. Today, Mr. Coven was teaching us about Ancient Rome and the 'fall' of the Roman Empire.

"You've all heard about the fall of the Roman Empire. It didn't really fall," he began. "Look around you. How is this room built?"

Ryan ventured "with walls?"

Mr. Coven responded "Yes, Ryan, with walls. How is this school built? What do you all see when you walk to the front of one of the buildings?"

Shane spoke up, "Aren't there pillars in front of the buildings?"

Mr. Coven replied "Precisely. What language are we speaking?"

This time, it was Kenny who said, "English."

"Yes," Mr. Coven replied, "English. A _Romantic_ language. _Roman_." He continued, "Rome didn't fall. It's right here. It's all around us. True, the original Roman Empire no longer exists as we knew it, but the civilization itself didn't _fall_."

The rest of the lecture continued in a similar fashion, which basically meant that Mr. Coven went through almost everything we had been taught about Rome and disproved it in one way or another while replacing it with what actually happened. I left that class not really understanding much of it, aside from the initial fact that Rome didn't fall.

E block was next, which for me, meant 50 minutes of feeling like an idiot. Honors Algebra II is one of the hardest classes a freshman can take. Out of the group, only Katie, Bharat, and I were eligible (and we all took it), but neither of them were in my specific class period/block. So, basically, it's me, 4 other freshmen (none of which I really got along with), and a ton of sophomores. At least Ms. Morrison didn't call on me, and only came to me once when we were working. Otherwise, the class flew by, probably due to lunch being next, and the surrender being signed.

And the world as we know it changing forever.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III

Lunch. 12:30 PM. 30 minutes and counting. We chose Ian and Sindhoor to get the keys. The rest of us headed over to the FC to get what we needed. I yanked open the FC doors and we all streamed through. The athletic director was sitting in his office, but rose to greet us when we entered.

"You guys need anything?" he asked. He seemed nervous, almost hyper.

"Hi, Coach!" came Katie's reply. "Can you help open the storage shed? We need the softball equipment."

"Sure," he replied, "let me find the keys."

We waited patiently while he rummaged in his desk, and before long, he pulled out a set of ordinary-looking keys. Without a word, he stepped around us, closed the door, and shut the blinds. He then stepped back to his desk and looked at a small board on the wall. It read "HI COACH JONES!" with some marker decoration around it. It was signed by both Katie and Gretchen. He glanced fondly at it for a second, and then reached up, grabbed it, and set it on his desk. Behind it was a small keyhole.

"Stand back" he warned us. He inserted the key and gave it a quarter-turn. Suddenly, the floor started shaking, and the ground directly below the key started lowering. A staircase began to take shape. As it formed, my hands started sweating in anticipation. As it finally stopped, there was a knock on the door. Stuart cracked it open, just far enough to let Ian and Sindhoor through, and then quickly shut it behind them. Without a word, Coach gestured for us to proceed down.

Lincoln was the first to enter. He seemed eager to bound down the steps, but when he got to the base of the staircase, he stopped and his jaw dropped in astonishment. For there, in the surprisingly well-lit room, was every kind of gun, sword, spear, bow, and all other handheld weapons that ever existed. As I entered, I noticed that there were also some weapons that had only appeared in videogames or books. Laser rifles, plasma-yield grenades, and the Omniblade, just to name a few. I shook my head in wonder and awe. How had our school kept this a secret for so long?

"Whoa," Ian exclaimed, "they actually made an Omniblade?"

I replied cheerfully, "Yep."

However, my awe was to be short-lived. Before I had a chance to really examine anything, Coach grabbed me and pulled me back up the staircase. I struggled at first, but then I became curious.

"Give me your watch-hand," was his command. I complied, wondering what the heck this was going to do. He looked at my watch, and tapped the 'start/split' button. Suddenly, a thin holographic screen popped up from the watch. I looked on while he typed in a 4-digit passcode. 9803.

He paused with his hand over the 'enter' button on the screen, telling me, "Brace yourself."

I nodded, and he tapped 'enter'. I heard a faint whirring and then a click. Almost instantly, my vision went completely dark, but I knew that I was still awake and on my feet. Then, a strange tingling sensation started from where my watch was, and slowly spread to the rest of my body. The tingling quickly turned into a pins-and-needles sensation, and then a wildfire slowly spread across me. I couldn't scream or clench my fists in agony, in fact; I couldn't utter a sound, let alone move any part of myself. I was suffering in my own private hell. The pain was unbearable.

Then, almost as soon as it had started, it was over. My nerves returned to normal. My vision came back. I looked at my hands to make sure they were still there. What I saw was not what I expected to see. My hands, instead of being flesh-and-bone, were cybernetic. I rolled up my sleeves, and sure enough, my arms were too. Without looking, I knew that my legs and my torso had also changed.

As I looked back at Coach, he told me, "Press your index fingers against your temples." I did, and I heard a click. Glasses had slid into place over my eyes, giving my vision a slight yellowish/orange tint and a HUD (Heads-Up Display). In the lower left corner of the HUD was a miniature map that displayed my surrounding 50 meters, with people displayed as little arrowheads pointing in the direction that they were facing. In the lower right corner was a set of 4 icons, none of which I knew the function of.

I asked, "Coach, how exactly am I supposed to use all of this?"

"Jack," Coach responded, "you've played Deus Ex: Human Revolution before. You should know what to do with these augmentations and how to trigger them."

"Okay…but how did I get these in the first place?" was my response.

"When you got surgery on your broken arm, we ordered this done as well. We knew this was coming all along," he replied nervously. Before I could question him further, he sent me back down the stairs into the armory.

I looked around, and since I didn't really know exactly what we were going to be up against, I chose to use an all-purpose loadout that I sort of had in my head once I'd heard of this. Although I was tempted to use the AR2 Assault Rifle (which could shoot, in addition to bullets, energy pellets that 'fizzled', or dissolved whatever they hit), I decided on defending myself with dual-wield K80 PDW's (mainly because of the faster firing rate and efficiency), each of which held 40 shots in a clip, for a total of 80 bullets before having to reload (hence the '80' in the name). I also grabbed a Nanotech Sniper Rifle for covering fire and support. After examining all of the grenades, I chose plasma-yield over fragmentation due to the fact that, while they do tend to knock out more terrain then frag grenades, they are ultimately more controlled and won't kill allies as much.

I strapped 3 of the grenades across my chest, put my K80's in holsters on my hip, and slung my Nano across my back. As I went to collect ammo for all three of them, I noticed 3 boxes on the bottom of my HUD. They had small icons for each of the weapons that I had picked up, with a '0' beside the guns, and a '3' beside the grenades. When I picked up ammo for the guns, the numbers changed accordingly to suit the total ammo count/clips (ex. 800/10 for the K80's). When I loaded the first clip, a fourth series of boxes appeared on my HUD. They showed the number of shots loaded in each weapon/amount of shots that could be loaded in the clip whenever I pulled said weapon out (ex. 80/80 for my K80's) on the top, and just below it was my reserve ammo.

I was finished with my selections before most of my friends had picked up their collective jaws from seeing all of the weapons. Maybe it was the augmentations, maybe it was the fact that I tend to work twice as fast as other people, I don't know. What I did know, however, was that it was 12:40 and we still needed food.

"Guys, come on!" I shouted, "We have 20 minutes left!" That got their attention, and they immediately started picking around to look for whatever suited them. The first person (aside from me) to finish choosing was Ian, in part because he knew his way around guns and war machines better than all of us. He came up with a L96 strapped across his back, a suppressed Glock in a hip holster, a Microtavor in his hands, and an Omni-tool strapped to his right arm.

"All set?" I asked him.

"Yep," was his reply, "ready to go."

After about a minute, Jessica came up. It appeared that she had gone straight for the archery equipment, as she only had her bow and arrows.

"Katniss Everdeen, are we?" Ian quipped.

"Oh, shut up!" was Jessica's reply.

After about five minutes, half of us were done. The other half was still walking around, not touching anything. By this point, I was getting a little frustrated (and hungry).

I walked up to Katie, and putting my hands on her shoulders, asked, "What's the matter?"

"Why?" she replied, almost tearfully, "Why are we doing this?"

"We have to survive," I pointed out, "don't we?"

"Uh-huh," she muttered.

"There ya go," I said. I dropped my arms and walked back to the stairs, where Ian pulled me aside and we discussed strategy while we waited for everyone else.

After five more minutes, everyone had finished. 12:51. Almost no time to get food and set up. Everybody except for Stuart and I hurried back out to go grab a bite. We followed more slowly. He never gets lunch anyways, and I don't need food. When we got to the lunch corner, he pulled out a toolkit and a device that looked like a very basic calculator but with a red switch on the top. He flipped the switch and pressed a few keys. As I began to wonder what it was, the toolkit in front of him jumped open, and out came a small turret, which quickly grew into a red twin-minigun mount complete with rockets and a targeting LED.

The finished turret looked like this: and the toolkit had looked like this:

I stood there for a second before shaking my head in admiration. It was just like Stuart to find a TF2 weapon and bring it into real life. Ever since I had introduced him to the game, he had enjoyed it.

"Buildin' a sentry!" Stuart quipped, and we both laughed. He then pulled out a thick armband and strapped it on. As I leaned closer to see what it was, a screen came to life with varying icons and meters on it. One of the icons looked like the turret, another looked like the dispenser from TF2, and another looked like a wrench, only with a number beside it, which read '1000'.

"That's interesting," Stuart muttered, "in TF2 you only get 200 metal, but here, I get 1000. Huh."

Just then, everybody else came back. "Are we all ready?" I asked.

Ian scanned everyone's faces, and replied "I think so."

12:55. 5 minutes. While everybody was gulping down their food, I experimented with my HUD and equipment, and figured out what the icons meant. I activated the first one, and I saw the corners of my vision flash. I waved my hand in front of me, but I couldn't see it. Lincoln turned to where I was, and jumped back in surprise.

"Where did Jack go?" he exclaimed. As everyone turned to look, I re-appeared with a laugh. I decided to test out the second icon, and to my dismay, it didn't seem to do anything. I then re-activated the first one to see what the two combined did. In frustration, I deactivated the second one, but left myself invisible and began pacing. Everyone near me suddenly seemed confused, and began looking around. I then re-activated the second icon, and they went back to normal. Apparently, the second icon let me move completely silently. I disabled both of them, and then enabled the third icon. Suddenly, everybody started glowing, and the area around grew dim. I deactivated it, a little unnerved. Then, I figured that it does more than just mess with my vision, so I went behind some bushes and tried again. I could still see my friends. Through the bushes. I was thinking to myself how awesome this was, when my watch alarm went off. I hastily deactivated the third icon and checked my watch. 12:59.

I jumped over the bushes, and noticed a small smoke trail behind me. Bharat was closest, and turned around with a small expression of shock on his face, "Rocket boots, Jack?" I looked down at my feet just in time to see two small vents retract into each one. "No time to experiment," I replied, and then louder, I said, "Guys! We have one minute!" Ian turned and headed for the FC door. I grabbed his shoulder and asked what he was doing. His answer was "I need to get to the roof. I need a good sniping position."

I replied, "Let me help you with that. Grab on." I then jumped and engaged my rockets, and we flew up to the roof, where I dropped him. He thanked me, and I dropped back down. 45 seconds.

I activated my implanted HUD/computer and connected to the school's network. 30 seconds.

I hacked into the PA system and uploaded a few songs. 15 seconds.

I played the first one just as the hour turned.


	4. Chapter 4

A loud bell sounded across campus as every 'non-rev' started shuddering. The second bell sounded, and they stopped shuddering. The third bell sounded, and they all turned towards us. The fourth bell sounded, and they came.

The ones nearest us were immediately targeted by Stuart's sentry gun, and killed. After the sentry shot, all hell broke loose. I leaped backwards to join Ian on the roof, and we both started picking off the more aggressive ones. After about 5 minutes of this, the incoming people were still coming strong, and I handed my rifle to Ian for him to use when he ran out of ammo in his L96. My implant picked up a group of 5 moving in on the flank, where no one was paying attention, and I decided to deal with it. I leapt down from the roof, but while I was doing so, I noticed electricity forming in my hands. My fist slammed down onto the ground, and it stunned them. Literally. Wasting no time, I threw a punch, but as I did, a blade extended from my arm and speared the guy. I paused for a second, and thought, "Augmentations. Right." I then took a hit in the back. My left arm reacted, extending the blade backwards into my attacker's abdomen. I re-extended it forwards, and spun around to deliver a lethal backhand. Three left. Two of them came straight at me, so I grabbed one's legs and flipped him. The other one hesitated for a second. I didn't. I threw an uppercut to his jaw, put my left hand behind his back, and smashed his chest in one hit with my right. He fell backward, down for the count. One more. He ran at me, and I met him with both of my blades extended into his lungs.

As I retracted them, I noticed out of the corner of my eye Lincoln straying farther and farther away from the group. I kept my radar on him as I leapt back into the fray. K80's flaring, I defended. When they got close enough for a takedown, I would extend a blade and keep fighting. This went on for about 5 minutes, but seemed like an eternity. Time was in slow motion, adrenaline pumping, my reactions quicker than anything I had ever experienced. The fight was going well, and I directed Stuart and Jessica to begin clearing a path to the car.

Suddenly, I felt a gun pressed against my head. I froze. My radar did a quick scan, and it showed Lincoln holding the gun. He must have either been taken over by the others, or not completely immune to the drug. Either way, I knew I had to act. I slid my right blade upwards and back into his arm, just before he pulled the trigger. I heard two shots. Only one bullet flew over my head. I spun around to follow up, and time stopped. I could see past his arm. I could see the wound forming on Katie's head. I could see the blood pouring out in slow motion. I could see her slowly falling to the ground with her eyes open. I

could see everything.

I saw myself extend both of my blades and stab Lincoln through the heart. I could feel my anger being unleashed. I came back to real time. Lincoln had a smirk on his face, as if to say "Hah! There's nothing you can do now!" Somehow, he wasn't dead. I was about to fix that. I played a sound across campus, so that he could hear what was about to go down.

"They're going to bury what's left of ya in a SOUP CAN!"

I dropped my K80's, stepped over him, and activated the fourth icon. My hands came out in front of me and dropped down to let a tri-barrel gun extend from each of my wrists. The fingers wrapped around the base of the guns. The barrels started spinning with a high-pitched metallic whine. I saw the muzzles flash. I heard the reports. I heard each individual thud as the bullets slammed into his body. I turned away from him, towards the horde of people, and I fired at them too. I was focused on one thing. Destroying every last one of them.

Stuart and Jessica had partway cleared a path, but when I turned my sights to that path, it was cleared in about five seconds. Their jaws dropped, but I took not notice. I spoke one word. "Go."

Ian jumped down and ran down the path with Sindhoor. Alex and Jessica followed. Kate and Maneesha were next. Bharat picked up his stuff and sprinted the length of it with Rachel. It was just me and Stuart left.

"As soon as I pack up my sentry, they're gonna mob us!" Stuart said.

"Stuart. Go. Now." was my response, never looking at him.

He hesitated for a second, and then obliged. The area behind me was now unprotected as he ran down the path. After he was safe, I stopped carving the path and turned to defending myself. I had not stopped firing the whole time. As I turned, I heard an audio feed coming through my implanted comm. I answered it, and it was Ian in the car. He was exclaiming about it transforming into a flying fortress or something or other. I couldn't really make sense of it. When I turned towards the car, however, I could see what he was talking about. Envision something along the lines of the _Millennium Falcon_ or a Blockade Runner (Star Wars) but more futuristic. And a fair bit bigger. I turned my attention back to defending myself just as I heard a loud exhaust roar from over where it was. I saw a shadow coming towards me, and I jumped straight up to meet it. My rockets engaged, my hands came back, and I flew straight into the open hatch, where I crumpled to the ground. Right before I fell unconscious, I felt it accelerate up and out of the school.


End file.
